THE EXPLORERS' CHRISTMAS 205 



my congratulations on reaching the head of the river. 

 I then produced the flute, and sitting on a stone near 

 the fire so that I could watch the pudding struck up 

 a Christmas tune or two, but, as the three lower notes 

 were still silent, the only part of the tune that tmy 

 audience could hear was the part that happened to 

 wander amongst the upper three notes ! My audience 

 which, by the way, consisted of two wekas I killed 

 after the concert was over and prepared for my 

 evening meal. It has since been insinuated by kind 

 friends that the audience probably died from the effect 

 of the performance ! 



My Christmas dinner consisted of five courses, 

 namely, AVeka's liver and heart on toast, roast weka, 

 one onion, devilled weka's leg, plum-duff, three dry 

 figs ; and I venture to say that, though I had no brandy 

 for the pudding, and the suet was too old and made 

 it taste tallowy, I spent as happy a Christmas as most 

 people. But I confess that a man must have succeeded 

 in reaching the head of his river after some pretty 

 rough work before he can really appreciate a ' duff ; 

 made of bad suet ! After a short smoking-concert 

 in the evening, I hung the remains of my socks on a 

 branch over my head and turned in, but I suppose 

 there were too many 'holes in them, for in the morning 

 the contents * panned out ' very poorly a little hoar 

 frost only ! " 



This is how Mr. Whitney, the American sportsman 

 who accompanied Commander Peary's Polar expedition 

 as far as Etah, in Greenland, in 1908, spent the 

 Christmas among the Eskimos I : " Every Eskimo in 

 the settlement came, big and little, old and young, and 

 1 See Bibliography, 7. 



